henry%clemson.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa (07/10/85)
From: Henry Vogel <henry%clemson.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa> >Henry Vogel (henry%clemson.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa) writes: >> One is forced to wonder how you can stand life? Last time I >> checked, most people have no idea what will happen next in their >> life or the lives of their friends. Admittedly, more people will >> have a tendency to get blown away (or have some other awful thing >> happen to them) in fiction than in real life, but awful things do >> happen in real life. I'm not flaming you for your opinion, but it >> does raise some interesting questions... Ken Moreau replies >That is one of the things about life that I cannot take: its >uncertainty. But it seems to me that you (and others) are coming >back to the same point, which is "Life has (uncertainty, bad guys >winning, good guys losing, everyone unhappy all the time, whatever >else you care to put here), and you somehow survive life, so why >don't you spend money on and actively enjoy the same things in >books?". Have you ever heard the term "escapism"? I read to enjoy >myself. Insisting that a lot of bad things be put into a book *JUST >BECAUSE SUCH THINGS HAPPEN IN REAL LIFE* eliminates one of the main >attractions of fiction, namely that it is NOT like life. Why do you assume that, just because I enjoy finding out what will happen next in a book (as opposed to knowing exactly what will happen), I know nothing about escapism and reading to enjoy myself? You said you hated not knowing what was going to happen next, were afraid that the characters you had developed an attatchment to were going to die or have something equally horrible happen to them. All I did was raise a rather obvious (to me) question concerning the uncertainty of life... AND you answered my question by saying you hated life's uncertainty! Fine. Based upon your posting, I asked a question and made NO assumptions concerning you or your reading habits. Based upon my posting, you *immediately* assumed certain things concerning me and my reading habits. This is something that has really bothered me concerning sf-lovers - the tentancy to lump someone who takes a contradictory opinion with those whose opinion you dispise thereby allowing you to ignore whatever they say. I don't fit into any of the molds that various people on the net - from Davis Tucker to Ken Moreau - have tried to out me in. Next time, deal with what I write, not what you decide you want to assume concerning me - most likely you're assumptions will be wrong. Henry Vogel henry%clemson.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa